


Saplings 1980

by hes5thlazarus



Series: Lazarus' Harry Potter Daydreams [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comedy, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Mentorship, Sort-of, before harry gets to hogwarts, minerva is not good at comfort, minerva resents being put into this position, of a sort, snape gets his shit together, the snape boy is literally oozing with misery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:36:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: Albus asks Minerva to tend to the "tender new sapling" of a Potions Master. Minerva looks at the manic-triggered recovered Death Eater and thinks they're doomed for failure. Snape thinks she's right. A couple of friendship & mentorship & not-quite hurt/comfort ficlets, where Severus oozes despair and McGonagall fails, completely, utterly, to be of service.
Relationships: Minerva McGonagall & Severus Snape
Series: Lazarus' Harry Potter Daydreams [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954336
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	1. A Taste of Sap

Minerva was patrolling the halls between classes, as per the new rotation she had drafted over the summer. Hogwarts’ wards were under continual attack, and so a staff member had to be constantly on hand, checking the walls for sympathetic cracks.

She liked the school when it was quiet. Not quite a schoolmarm yet, Minerva didn’t dislike the boisterous changed between classes, the roar of relieved students gossiping on their way to the next subject. She had been a Gryffindor, after all–but when the thoughtful hum of quiet, students and teachers safely tucked away, spread across the halls, she felt at peace.

There was a black mass oozing at the window. Minerva stopped suddenly, and cautiously raised her wand and squinted. The ooze was literal metaphor, she realized: emotionality seeping from a person’s skin. Underneath the ooze were black robes, and underneath those was, presumably, Severus Snape. He was staring blankly out of the window.

Minerva, wand still held aloft, stepped closer, careful not to make a sound. The Snape boy–assistant teacher, she reminded herself, he had his degree and everything–didn’t notice. The ooze began to thin. She waited until it became thick grey smoke, and ventured, “Severus?”

He started so violently Minerva heard his neck crack. The smoke disappeared. Scowling, Snape rubbed his neck. “Y-you called, Professor McGonagall?”

Minerva stared at him. Snape’s scowl smoothed into a sneer, and then, carefully, blanked. Fascinating: Minerva continued to stare.

“I–beg–your–pardon?” Snape hammered out, hand still gripping the joint of neck and shoulder. “You–called?”

“You were oozing,” Minerva said finally. With heroic effort, she resisted asking if he did that often.

“Oh.”

“Quite.”

“Yes.” Snape looked ruffled. “Uh. I have a class to teach.”

“Indeed. In twenty minutes.”

“Yes. You know that. Of course you know that. You write the schedules.”

“Good day, Professor Snape.”

“Good day.” He tried to sweep away. He stumbled on his own oversized cloak. Minerva thought, Albus, what the fuck are you playing at?


	2. Amber

“He was oozing, Albus,” Minerva said anxiously. “I don’t think he’s in any fit state to teach.”

Albus had that faraway, twinkling look in his eye that Minerva detested. He twinkled at her. Minerva set her jaw. “Minerva, he’s suffered some emotional upset–”

“He’s always upset,” Minerva snapped, “and if he’s twenty years old and can’t control his magic yet–”

Albus’ eyes suddenly went cold. Taken aback, Minerva twisted her hands. Albus said coolly, “I give you my word that Severus Snape has absolute, total, and admirable control over his magic and temper. He is facing demons we can only dream about. While, I confess, I find the boy sometimes…intractable, he has put his life into Hogwarts’ disposal. Have any of the students complained? Any of the other staff?”

Minerva sighed. “When we will be running a school, and not a fortification? I can understand choosing that–Trelawney character for Divination, but the Potions position requires a firm hand, and he’s barely out of his undergraduate apprenticeship.”

“He just completed his Mastery, actually,” Albus twinkled. “He took his OWL and NEWT the same year, and did his apprentice research under Horace and Arsenius. On bottling defensive spells, if you remember.”

“Well, he’s certainly keeping a lot bottled up,” Minerva snapped. “How can we be sure we can trust him? James Potter says–”

Albus suddenly looked exhausted. “Minerva, much of the trouble Hogwarts has faced in the past five years could have been avoided, if I hadn’t listen to intently to what James Potter said.”

Minerva’s lips thinned. She blinked rapidly. “Have you heard anything, from the Potters? Are they safe?”

“As houses,” Albus reassured her. “Sirius is bringing a new batch of letters next week. But about our tender little snapling,” Minerva snorted despite herself, “I ask you to give him time, and the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he oozes. But some of that might turn into amber.”

Minerva paused. “That is a very convoluted metaphor.”

“I’ll see you at dinner, Professor McGonagall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> —-  
> I headcanon Dumbledore realizing he made a mistake pretty early on, in trusting the Marauders. By 1979–there’s got to be a reason beyond the Hallows he took the Invisibility Cloak from James, and so readily believed Sirius was a mass murderer. And James certainly didn’t trust him, refusing to let him be the Secret Keeper. I personally think the prophecy was made in 1979 and Dumbledore was seen publically taking Snape on pretty quickly afterward–that word came in that Lily was expecting within weeks of the prophecy. I also like the idea of Horace subtly encouraging Snape to defect, telling him about the interview in the first place, and not knowing how that played into Voldemort’s plans.  
> And honestly? I want to play with the idea of Severus overhearing Minerva talking about James’s letters, and maybe he gets letters from Lily. I suppose this can fit into the series of headcanons I wrote about Lily’s last letters, then.


	3. Merlin I Am Your Mother

Sev stomped into his seventh year NEWT class, already in a foul mood. He was always bad-tempered, but today was particularly worse. Horace had kept him up half the night drinking and grading, and he’d had to suffer through three choruses of the Ballad of Odo the Hero before they’d finished the NEWT-level theory exams. He threw the roll of parchment onto his desk and stalked across the front of the room. The room immediately silenced.

“Not one of you,” he seethed, “not one of you could name me all thirty-six uses of moonstone powder. Though we had spent the entire term using every. Single. One. Of them.” He loomed over a particularly noxious Gryffindor. “And some of you…could not even name me the alchemist who discovered twelve uses of dragon’s blood. And one of you misspelled his name.” He leaned in. The Gryffindor, a sandy-haired bespeckled pillock who had dogged Black’s footsteps those short three years ago, scowled back. This class had been fourth years when he was a seventh year. Sev’s sneer thickened.

There was a single snicker from the back of the Slytherin side: Lucie Rosier, auburn hair, her brother had asked him to look after her before he had been killed by aurors. He ignored it.

He turned abruptly and stalked to the center of the classroom. “Can any of you explain to me,” he hissed, “why these test scores were so abysmal? Can any of you explain to me why you have failed in basic recitation of the facts?” He flung out his hands. “It’s not as if we were asking you to use logic and critical thinking, no, we don’t expect that from students at your level. A simple regurgitation of the facts would have sufficed. But none of you managed even that.”

He made eye contact with a plump ginger, another Gryffindor. He remembered her: she had spread a rumor he had forced his girlfriend to get an abortion, his seventh year. Florence had never been pregnant and at that point he was just fucking Mulciber, anyway, Florence had figured out she had more fun watching anyway, and it would have been very difficult but not outside the realm of possibility to get him pregnant, but none of them were into that. His eyes narrowed. She looked down.

Sev swept up the roll of essays and brandished them at the silent class. Even Lucie Rosier was looking ashamed now. “So? Anyway of you? Care to explain why?”

Sandy-haired Pillock muttered something to Plump Ginger. Ginger snickered. Sev slammed the roll of essays on his desk. Half the class jumped.

“Care to share the joke?” he said dangerously.

“No,” she mumbled, “sir.”

Sev drew himself up. “You.” He pointed at the Pillock, who pushed up his glasses nervously. “Twenty points for speaking out of turn and you,” he snarled back at Ginger, “another ten points for disrespect.” The Gryffindors were stirred up, muttering to themselves, looking pissed off.

“That’s not fair!” Pillock exclaimed. “She said ‘sir’!”

Sev stared at him, and actually laughed. Bitch, he thought. Little Gryffindor fuckhead bitch. “Perhaps it has not been made clear to you,” he grinned, “but life isn’t fair.”

Even the Slytherins were looking creeped out. There was something demented in his smile.

“The classroom should be!” Pillock said righteously. “You’ve been taking off points for minor infractions since the start of term! You’ve been bullying us, just because–because–”

“Because what?” Sev said, lips tugging into a smirk. He almost could not believe his ears.

“Because you’re bitter!” the Gryffindor finally exploded. “Because you’re bitter you were Professor Snivellus back when you were a student, and you’re still Professor Snivellus now!”

Sev closed his eyes for a second and smiled coldly. He turned his head up to the ceiling, where traces of the manacles that once hung were still visibly, rusty nails, a splash of old blood, and he could almost hear the chain whipping. When he opened his eyes the students were all staring at him, Lucie Rosier looking apprehensive but almost eager, the anonymous Ravenclaws whispering to each other, and Pillock and Ginger were grinning at him, defiant and righteous. He opened his mouth slightly, an oddly sensual gesture, and with his thumb outlined his lips, staring at Pillock intrigued. He had inherited the gesture from Bellatrix Black, Lestrange now, she’d gotten married two months ago, how she would look at the blood traitor resistance, when they would helplessly spit their propaganda back at them. How cute: he knows how to speak. A shame it’s such filth. We’ll just have to cut out his tongue, then. His eyes narrowed, he whipped his wand across his wand: crack. The Pillock flinched, and he started speaking.

At first he began crooning, quiet, from the beginning of the room, walking across the stage that was his teacher’s podium and desk, and eventually he sauntered closer and closer to the Pillock, until he was speaking at a whisper a few inches away from his face, and Pillock was white and shaking and trying to slouch under the table, and it wasn’t until he saw the defiance fade into desperation that he stopped, pushed himself away from the desk and walked, back to the room, back to his podium. With a careless hand, he summoned the papers, wandless, wordless. He undid the leather cord that bound them and snapped the parchment straight. They distributed themselves, a handy charm Flitwick had taught him. Once done, he surveyed the classroom, face cold. Wide frightened eyes stared back at him. Pillock was still shaking, Ginger looked cowed. Lucie Rosier smiled at him, resplendent in her green robes. She looked so much like her brother.

“Miss Rosier,” he said, “can you tell me the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and their applications in the subtle science and exact art of potion making?’

* * *

Minerva slammed her way into the staffroom. “Severus Alexander Snape!” she screeched. “What the hell did you do to Graeme Fawley?”

Sev looked over the edge of his newspaper. He raised a single black eyebrow at her. Horace harrumphed. “Now, Minerva, I’m certain we have to allow for a certain school boy exaggeration….” He waggled his eyebrows at her. Sev smirked. She had said the same thing about him, during the Werewolf Incident.

“He was having a full on mental breakdown when Jody Overcliff ran and brought me to the Hospital Wing, sobbing and shaking and unable to even breathe properly! What the hell went on?”

“NEWT level Potions are very stressful,” Horace said blandly. Severus’ smirk widened. Auriga Sinistra, the new Astronomy professor, who had only been six years ahead of him in school, nudged him. She wrote, on a piece of parchment, “Sluggy 1 McG 0.”

“This isn’t funny,” Minerva snapped. “We are in a war right now, our castle is under siege, and we need to ensure student morale is high, not drive them into hysterics!”

Sev sniggered.

“What is so funny about hysterics, Mr. Snape?” Minerva rapped out.

“Professor Snape,” he corrected her.

“I’ll call you Professor Snape when you start acting like one, young man! Pushing petty rivalries onto your students, oozing your emotions out between classes–you need to straighten up, you’re almost twenty-one now! You have to control yourself and stop bothering other–children. When you start acting like an adult, I’ll treat you like one, young man!”

Sev suddenly snarled, “Don’t call me that, you’re not my mother!’ He threw his newspaper aside and stormed out of the room. Minerva gaped after him.

Horace snickered, “You are acting a little like his mother there, Minerva. More his minder than I am.”

“I am not his mother,” Minerva snarled.

This time, Auriga spoke up. “Really? I remember his first year, he’d always come complaining to the prefects about how you’d be bothering him to wash his face, tuck in his shirt, hold his head up, look at people when he was talking to him…I don’t remember you bothering about other firsties like that, not even before the war started.”

Minerva sank down in the chair Sev had just vacated. “I am not his mother. We don’t even look alike.”

Horace countered, “Have you met Eileen?”

“Who?”

“Eileen Prince. Khadijah and Edward Prince’s girl, Bibi Burke’s sister. Geordie girl. She was captain of the Gobstones team when she was a student, Hufflepuff, worked as an Obliviator in the late 50s. She should’ve overlapped with your time in the Ministry, Minerva.”

Minerva frowned. “I don’t see how this is relevant.”

Horace leaned forward and patted her knee. “You two are quite similar, my dear. Shape of the face and temperament, though Ellie didn’t quite care so much for…decorum as you do. Telling our little snapling to hold his head high and keep himself clean, treat his body and his clothes with respect.”

“Didn’t you take him and James Potter’s wife to Diagon Alley, when Eileen was sick? In his first year,” Auriga was smirking openly. “And you bought him his cat, didn’t you? Malfoy had mentioned it, asked me about it when we handed down the prefect files.”

Minerva closed her eyes. “It was just a…meaningless fit of generosity, it doesn’t mean I care for the boy.”

Auriga said, “Quote ‘I’ll start treating you like an adult when you start acting like one, young man’ end quote. Emphasis my own.” Horace glanced at her. “What? I’m working on a paper.”

With dawning horror, Minerva said, “Merlin I am his mother.”

“Closest thing he has to one,” Horace said cheerfully.

Wordlessly Minerva got up and, dazed, made her way out of the door. Auriga returned to her marking: Sluggy 2 McG -1.


	4. Smell Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horace Slughorn takes our tender little snapling out for a drink.

“If you show a hint of a fear,” Severus said darkly, hand suspicious still on the whiskey glass, “they come piling in like bloodhounds, baying for blood.”

Sluggy regarded him fondly. They were sitting by the fire in his second-favorite private study, the one he used for private professional meetings. He was reclining in his overstuffed arm chair. Severus was ramrod straight. “Severus,” Sluggy said, “there is still a line between showing no fear and terrorizing a seventeen year old to the point of hysterics. What did you even say to him?” Graeme Fawley was a little shit who had it coming, but public humiliation that overt was not his style.

Severus smiled thinly. “I only asked him if he thought Dumbledore would have hired me if I were sniveling like him. Amongst other things.”

Horace raised a teacher eyebrow.

“Like what his pals have been up to. And my dormmates. If I were so snivelling, how am I still alive?” Severus folded his arms defensively, crossed his legs, gave a defiant look.

The fire crackled. Horace sighed. “You went Death Eater on him.”

“I may have channeled by inner Bellatrix,” Sev smirked, “but you told me to work on my presence and authority.”

“Try something else.”

Shadows deepened in the room, and when Sluggy looked up at Sev in shock he saw his eyes were dark, fathomless holes. In a cold, piercing voice an octave higher than usual, Snape said, “I regret it.”

Horace finished the shot, and grabbed Severus’ too.


	5. About the Potters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minerva has her sense of reality upset.

The Order faculty went out for a drink at the Three Broomsticks the second Friday of the first term, halfway into September. With him Albus brought letters, delivered via the Secret Keepers, from those in hiding. Minerva was excited to see what James Potter had thought up. He'd always been one of those sparkling, excitable, effortlessly brilliant boys. The letter was charming as usual, detailing plans for experiments, joke products, dreams, and even an outline of how the baby was doing. He said Lily was getting quiet, stuck in the house all day, burying herself in books rather than joining him on occasional jaunts under the Invisibility Cloak. She seemed to think it reckless, rather than brave.

Glancing over her letter, she noticed Snape of all people, clutching a letter and maniacally scanning it, biting hard on his lower lip. She stared at him. He looked angry. He always looked angry, but there was a level of frustrated desperation she had only seen when they’d been called to Albus’ office, to moderation his latest crimes.

“What the f--what are you looking at?” Snape snarled at her.

Wrongfooted--it was wrong to stare, and letters from those in hiding were necessarily private--McGonagall stiffened. “I beg your pardon?” she said drily.

Snape returned to his letter. Curiously piqued, Minerva narrowed her eyes. Who could be writing to him? Maybe it was his mother, or that muggle father of his. She remembered Lily had been friendly to him, the two of them bent over their transfiguration work, talking in an undertone, the only mixed-house pairing in the class--but that had ended fifth year, and nastily too, served him right. It couldn’t be him.

Albus chuckled, a tinge nervously. “Well, that’s that. How are the Potters doing? Has little Harry grown any more teeth?”

Minerva frowned, squinted at the letter. “Well, James doesn’t say too much about Harry, just that’s he really quite taken to Quidditch, Sirius Black bought him a toy broom for his first birthday, didn’t he? He’s been playing more with tracer spells and psychic papers, finding a way to link thoughts directly to the page--of course, he’s being a bit silly about it, you know how he is, he’s trying to find a way to hit someone with a paper dart and have it draw out whatever images they’re dreaming of--”

Snape looked simultaneously horrified and disgusted.

“Do you have a problem, Mr. Snape?” Minerva asked tartly.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. “Professor Snape,” he said lightly, “how’s Lily doing? Has she made any headway on her mirror-theatres?”

Snape scowled. “Hasn’t much headway,” he muttered, “not with the baby and that husband of hers being no help.” Minerva paused; there were several things going on that contradicted her sense of reality. First: Lily Evans Potter, muggleborn extraordinaire, wrote to a reformed Death Eater? Then: Severus Snape, said (barely) reformed Death Eater, had a habit of sounding like an old lady, when it came to domestic gossip? Finally: Lily wrote to him, not her? Not Flitwick?

Minerva said tartly, “Considering that James send me a diagram of her prototype, I doubt he’s as little use as you consider him.”

Snape sneered, and tapped Lily’s letter with his wand. “Reveal your secrets.” Smoke billowed from the ink and curled softly into a Versailles, swarming with runes moving so quickly Minerva couldn’t keep track of them, and then dissipated, leaving the smell of sandalwood in the room. “About the Potters,” Snape said, “Lily said she was going to send some paperwork your way, Albus. To put in her vault until the war’s over. And says to get in contact with her lawyer, to ask him about alimony law in unbonded marriages.”

Albus sighed.


End file.
